


Those Summer Nights

by callmeonetrack



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: AU, F/M, pre-mini, teenaged!pilots
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-07-18
Updated: 2011-07-18
Packaged: 2017-10-21 12:36:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,775
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/225229
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/callmeonetrack/pseuds/callmeonetrack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lee and Kara meet as teenagers one summer on the Picon boardwalk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Those Summer Nights

“SAY IT!” Kara hooted and laid down the gun. She whirled, grinning triumphantly into his face.

Lee held out, resisting for as long as he can.

It wasn’t long.

It never was with Kara.

“Fine, you’re the best shot…” he rolled his eyes, but couldn’t help the answering grin that started to form, “on or off the boardwalk.”

She cackled and turned back to the barker, who was smirking to himself and shaking his head. It was nothing Joe hadn’t heard before. They’d been coming here nearly every Saturday night of the summer to duel it out with water pistols. An ocean breeze swept past, filling his nose with the scents of fried dough and saltwater, as Lee looked up at the plastic horses where his blue-saddled racer was just a few inches behind Kara’s green-saddled pony. She beat him twice as often as he managed to beat her, but it evened out. Lee’s patient dexterity made him far better at the rubber frog toss game.

“Alright, little lady, what’ll it be?”

Anyone else would probably get a punch in the nose for merely implying Kara Thrace was a lady, little or otherwise. But she _liked_ Joe (Lee couldn’t believe it the first time he saw Kara blush at the long-haired, tattooed carny), so she only smiled and tapped a finger against her lips as she eyed the stuffed animals hanging from the top and sides of the booth.  A few seconds passed as she surveyed them and Lee cringed, waiting.

“That one!” Her arm shot out, pointing to an enormous orange orangutan on the back wall. Joe got it down and, with a sympathetic-yet-amused look, handed it to Lee. Kara cackled again, delighted. The rule was that the winner always got to pick the most humiliating prize they could find for the loser to carry around for an entire hour. He looked down at the garish thing, its bright fur dotted with deep red lip prints. The words “Let’s Monkey Around!” were printed on the white circle of its belly. Lee grimaced as Joe chuckled and Kara reached out and ripped apart the velcro linking its hands and feet together.

Then suddenly, without warning, she leaned into him and Lee’s nose filled with the mingled aroma of watermelon bubblegum, apple shampoo, and the faintest tinge of cigarette smoke. The scent was distinctly Kara and Lee couldn’t help but inhale deeply, his stomach tightening and eyes widening as she suddenly slid her arms around his waist. 

His surprise only lasted a moment. Kara velcroed the stuffed animal’s feet together, then her arms encircled his neck as she looped the arms closed too. It was completely innocent, of course. He’d met Kara three months ago in the lobby of the Picon Grand, and since then they’d shared dozens of funnel cakes, a plethora of bad jokes, and countless rolls of quarters at the arcade, but nothing more physical than playful punches on the arm and epic thumb wrestling matches. 

Still, Lee was frozen in place, unable to think, unable to breathe, and miraculously, she didn’t move away. Kara was just watching him with big eyes, her head tilting slightly. She was close enough that if he just moved forward one inch, their noses would brush.

Two, and their lips would.

Lee shuddered out a breath, hesitating, torn between anticipation and indecision. He licked his lips nervously, brain chugging a million miles a minute— _oh gods, she’s looking at my mouth. That’s a good sign, right? Or do I have something on my face? Sugar from the fried dough? Should I kiss her? I should kiss her. Would she punch me if I kissed her? Joe’s watching us. Maybe—_

“Hey! You guys!”

It was Zak, jogging towards them from down the boardwalk.

And Kara jerked back and just like that the moment was gone.

“Hey!” Zak panted, as he finally caught up to them. “Glad I found you. Dad just dropped me off.”

Bill Adama had filed for divorce two years ago, moved here to Picon, and Lee still hadn’t forgiven him. But the courts had mandated that Bill got custody on holidays and school vacations. When he was planetside anyway, which wasn’t very often. At 17, Lee was old enough to recognize the hard truth of the “facts on the ground” (one of his father’s favorite sayings): the commander cared more about his damn antiquated warship than he did about his family.

Zak was just 14, though, and he thought Bill Adama walked on water. Lee wasn’t cruel enough to burst his little brother’s bubble, but it still rankled and Lee had vowed to spend as little time as possible in his dad’s actual presence as he could manage. He’d refused to go to dinner with them tonight, claiming he wasn’t hungry.

It was only a partial lie. If he thought too much about the fact that summer was nearly over, Lee could easily lose his appetite. Because the end of summer meant no more Kara. She was a local kid not a tourist like him. Part of him couldn’t wait to get back to his friends, his mom, his life on Caprica. Even the prospect of attending the Fleet Academy in the fall was a welcome alternative to the minefield that was his father’s company. But every time Lee thought about not seeing Kara again till next summer, assuming she’d even be here and not off at art school or pyramid training or backpacking thru the Picon wilderness like she kept talking about, his stomach tied itself in knots.

Zak chortled, rousing Lee from his thoughts, and nodded his chin at the stuffed monkey draped around him. “Your new girlfriend’s a real looker.”  

He reached out and lightly cuffed Zak on the back of the head.”Shut it, brat.”

His brother just smirked and threw an arm around Kara. “Miss me, babe?” 

Kara stomped on his foot. Hard. Lee tried not to grin. “Call me babe, again, and you’ll be doing the missing,” she said, grinning overly sweetly now. “Some teeth.”

Undaunted, his grin didn’t even falter. If he thought their dad walked on water, then Zak thought the suns rose and set with Kara Thrace. Even if she was far too old for him at 16, his little brother had an enormous, unmistakable crush. Not that Lee could blame him.

Zak had actually seen Kara first. They’d gone down to the hotel restaurant with their dad for dinner that first night and Zak had leaned over and whispered “Hey, look! There’s someone else under forty in this joint.” Kara had been perched on a window sill not far from the piano, shaggy blonde cap of hair bobbing, fingers tapping a beat against the frayed denim she wore. She was lost in the music.

And Lee was lost looking at her. Even with her eyes closed, her face was like a kaleidoscope of emotions. Expressive and _alive_ like no one he’d ever met, and something in Lee’s chest had twisted as he watched her, ached to get to know this girl, even while it felt, oddly but unmistakably, like he _did_ know her.

Lee wasn’t given to poetics. He’d never believed in love at first sight or soulmates or any of that crap. But when the song had ended, and she’d finally opened her eyes, only to somehow focus directly onto Lee’s… well, there was no other way to describe it, but he’d felt a click. Like a puzzle piece shifting into place to complete the big picture. He probably would have been content to stand there, just staring at her all night, but Zak wasn’t. He’d elbowed their way over to her side and introduced them. It wasn’t ten minutes before he’d challenged Kara to play a three-way game of triad with them. She’d won, of course, and the rest was history.

The three of them had been inseparable since. This was the first night that he and Kara had really been alone, and now it was over. Briefly it flashed through his mind, not for the first time, to tell his tag-along brother to go take a long walk off the short pier.

Lee didn’t. Instead, he tried not to think about the fact that she hadn’t knocked Zak’s arm away as they started walking down the boardwalk. The three of them meandered, the boys flanking Kara like usual, as she recapped last night’s Buccaneers game which had apparently ended with some kind of rip-roaring brawl on the court. Her hands gestured wildly as she talked, making sound effects to help the story along, and Lee loved watching her. He hated pyramid (a fact he hadn’t confessed to Kara) but would gladly listen to her talk about it all night.

They ducked into the arcade and spent the next hour trying to outshoot, outfly and outscore each other on the simulators. On the way out, punishment over, Lee detached the velcroed toy monkey and gladly handed it off to some little girl who’d been crying over a dropped ice cream cone. She beamed up at him, all missing teeth and smudged chocolate mouth, and when he turned back around, Kara was watching him, smirking. “Softie,” she said, and nudged his shoulder.

Lee grinned. “You won’t be calling me that when I kick your ass at the frog booth.” And he took off running, Kara racing after him, and Zak behind them both, calling for them to wait up.

 Twenty minutes later, Lee’s frog-tossing prowess was preserved; he was the only one to land a rubber amphibian in the center circle of lilypads. He rubbed his hands together and eyed the prizes, scanning them quickly until he saw it. Two bears stitched together like they were kissing perched on a big pink pillow with the words “You’re beary special to me” scrawled in loopy cursive across it. It was perfect. Pink and shmoopy and everything Kara would hate.

The barker handed it to him and he passed it to Kara, smirking. Zak hooted when he got a glimpse of it, but Kara just looked at it for a long moment, tilting it to read the words, then she laughed and shoved it under her arm without saying a word. Lee was a little disappointed, to be honest. Maybe he should’ve gone for the tie-dyed three-foot-long snake instead.

They kept moving down the boardwalk, stopping for cotton candy when Zak claimed he was starving. He and Kara both got blue and Lee got pink, like always. “You are such a girl, Adama,” Kara snickered, and Zak high-fived her.

 Lee just shook his head. “The pink one tastes better.” Which just made them snicker more.

“It’s all spun sugar and food coloring! They taste the same!” Kara argued.

“No, they don’t! The pink is vanilla and the blue is raspberry. And I like vanilla better.”

She rolled her eyes. “Of course, you do.”

Zak started telling a story then, so Lee let it drop. But when Kara polished off her cone, and reached over to pluck a tuft of pink froth from his, he grinned and moved it out of her reach. She narrowed her eyes and Lee started running just seconds before she pounced.

The game of chase lasted for another ten minutes, Lee barely managing to keep his poor cotton candy mostly intact, when Kara stopped short suddenly and turned towards one of the shop fronts. This end of the boardwalk had more neon and trash, a bit less clean and well lit than back where the games were. Usually, Lee made them turn back before they came down this far. But his focus had been elsewhere and now Kara was staring at a small tattoo shop with dingy windows, a dangerous  look on her face. “Think I could pass for 18?”

“Yeah,” Zak exclaimed, just as Lee snorted, “No.” 

Kara stuck her tongue out at him, then muttered “Killjoy.”

“You’re gonna get a tattoo?” Zak crowed, eyes nearly popping out of his head. “That’s hot! You should get something cool like a dragon, right here.” He reached out and traced a finger on the band of tanned skin peeking out between Kara’s cutoffs and her tank top. Lee’s jaw clenched and he swallowed hard and turned away, tossing the rest of his treasured confection in a trash barrel. He’d suddenly lost his appetite.

“Watch the fingers, squirt.” Kara hissed. “And give me a little credit, would ya? I’m not getting a frakking tramp stamp. Everyone does that!”

“They won’t buy it,” Lee insisted. “They’ll ask for ID.”

“You’re 18. And I can fake it.” She reached down and adjusted her tank top, pulling at the neckline so more cleavage showed. It took a second before he could force his eyes back up to her face.

“See?” She grinned and shrugged. “Bet you 20 cubits I can talk them into it.”

“Kara,” Lee said warningly, a sinking feeling in his stomach. This was a bad idea.

“Lee,” she mocked in return, and then she reached out and grabbed his arm.. “Come on! I need you!” He blinked “You’re my cover!”

She pulled him through the door into the dim, smoky little shop, Zak hot on their heels. “No one under 18, them’s the rules,” growled the burly, bearded man behind the counter. He gestured toward the sign on the wall, ash falling from the end of his cigar.

Kara stepped forward and looped her arm through the crook of Lee’s elbow to his surprise. “Oh, we’re 18.”

The guy didn’t comment, just narrowed his eyes at Zak, who was a few steps back staring at some of the samples on the walls.

“That’s just my boyfriend’s little brother,” Kara cooed, in a voice so saccharine he didn’t recognize it. She was holding the pillow with the little bears in front of her now, squeezing it to her chest, and the soft plush was tickling his elbow. “We got stuck babysitting tonight.” She was staring at Lee with a fake grin, and he felt a hard thump against his ankle.

Zak walked over and piped up. “Hey, I’m not— Oof”

The grin didn’t even falter on Kara’s face even though she’d clearly dealt Zak a swift kick of shut the frak up as well. “Quiet, Zak” she threatened through gritted teeth, then in a louder faker, cloying voice to Lee, said, “Right, honey?”

“Uh, right…babe.” Lee felt himself flushing, unable to process. Then Kara smiled at him, a real smile, and just leaned right in and pressed her mouth to his.

It was fast, not more than a peck really but Lee’s head was spinning when she pulled back and started talking again.

“Lee couldn’t leave him home by himself, and he’d promised to take me tonight. I’ve been saving up all summer—” He barely registered Kara’s spiel, hoping his face didn’t look as thunderstruck as he felt. Where the heck had that come from?

As he pondered the whys and wheretofores of the unexpected kiss, Kara’s assertion was proven correct. She could fake it, or maybe Mr. Brawny didn’t much care about the rules after all. “Whatever,” he cut her off. “Just get in the chair. I hope you know what you want.”

Kara beamed at Lee triumphantly. “Yeah, I do.”

She let go of him then and he took a deep breath as Kara climbed onto the chair. It took just five minutes for her to explain the relatively simple design she wanted: a series of concentric circles of yellow, red and blue—almost like a bullseye but more freeform and abstract with the outer rim edged with waves like a child’s drawing of the sun. Lee wondered why, what the story was behind it, but didn’t want to ask in front of Zak and the artist for some reason.

“OK, where do ya want it?”

Zak loudly insisted again that she should go for the lower back, and Kara told him exactly what she thought about that idea, when Lee suddenly spoke up. “She wants it here.” He reached down to Kara’s outstretched arm, finger brushing the skin on the swell of her upper forearm just below her elbow joint. Kara stared at him in surprise, and he moved his hand, wondering what had possessed him to be so presumptious. But somehow, he just knew he was right.

The artist looked at Kara, who was staring at Lee with surprise and confusion and maybe even a bit of awe on her face. “You and the boyfriend agree?”

Kara nodded slowly, her gaze not wavering. “Yeah, that’s where I want it.”

The guy shook his head. “S’gonna hurt. You better hold on to something.”

Kara grabbed the pillow in her left hand, and to Lee’s surprise, she reached forward and slid her right into his. Their palms, still sticky from the candy fluff, pressed together as Kara curled her fingers around his hand. Her eyes stayed steady, locked on his. “I’m good.”

It took about 40 minutes. Kara winced a lot, especially near the end, and gripped his hand so hard Lee almost thought he could feel the bones rub against one another. But when the artist said he was finished, it still took him a beat before he let go of her hand. Kara stood and held her arm up to inspect it more closely, then smiled at the colorful sphere. There _was_ something mesmerizing about its power and vibrancy, Lee had to admit. Kind of like its owner.

“So, where to next?” Zak asked, when they’d paid and filed out of the little shop. It was late, and Lee should probably suggest they pack it in, head back to the hotel. But the truth was he didn’t want the night to end yet. They’d be leaving in another week, and the thought was depressing.

“Actually,” Kara said, “I could murder a corndog.”

Lee raised an eyebrow. “You’re still hungry? After a funnel cake, all your cotton candy and half of mine?”

Kara scoffed, “That was dessert! Now I need food.”

He was about to point out that dessert _was_ food, but Kara turned to Zak with a conspiratorial smile. “You know who has the best corndogs? Mac’s.”

Mac’s was all the way at the other end of the boardwalk. 

“Yup, too bad it’s so far though,” she sighed loudly, with a hint of theatricality. “My arm hurts and I don’t wanna go all the way back.” She let a whine creep into her voice for those last few words and Lee just shook his head. Kara was clearly baiting Zak.

And his brother fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. “You want me to go?”

“If you want,” Kara shrugged, like it hadn’t all been her idea anyway. “Your call.”

He was already moving though, turning to head back down the long boardwalk. He grinned, “Anything for you, babe.”

 “Don’t call me babe.” But he turned and started jogging off. Kara looked at Lee and winked.

“You’re kind of evil, you know that right?”

“And you love it!” Her face was alight, eyes dancing with mischief. “Hey, I wanna show you something.” Kara ran to the wooden railing that fronted the ocean and climbed up, swinging a leg over it just inches to the right of the “No climbing” sign posted to it.  

“Uh, we’re not supposed to—“

“Shit, Lee, do you _ever_ do anything you’re not supposed to do?” She cried from her perch atop the railing.

He looked down the boardwalk. “What about Zak…”

She rolled her eyes. “We’re not actually babysitting him, you know! C’mon!” Kara beckoned, one hand outstretched.

“I don’t know,” he said, shaking his head even as he walked closer. Kara started waving him on more empatically and suddenly she tilted, losing her balance, and Lee watched in horror as she tumbled over the side, with a shriek of surprise. “Kara!” His stomach lurched and he ran the last few steps, vaulting over the waist-high barrier without thinking.

It was only about an 8-foot drop and he landed in a crouch on the sandy beach, right next to Kara, who was sprawled out awkwardly, already giggling.

“Are you okay?”  He asked, heart still pounding like the steel drums he could hear echoing down the beach, even though she clearly was well enough to be lying there laughing like a loon.

Kara grinned up at him. “Yeah, I think this broke my fall,” she shifted and pulled out the stuffed pink toy from under her. It was covered in sand. “Gods, you should see your face, Lee!”

He frowned and muttered, “not funny,” but held out a hand. Kara clasped it and let him pull her up on to her feet, but she didn’t let go, just twisted her hand in his and twined their fingers together. Lee stiffened in surprise for a second, wondering, but Kara was already tugging him forward, darting under the crossed wooden support beams holding up the boardwalk. She led them on, turning and taking them under an old dock that lead out to the water. The sand got damp then muddy under his flip flops, and they were nearly at the shoreline when Kara stopped, kicked her own sandals off, and just plopped down onto the beach. 

Lee stood awkwardly for a moment, hesitant to plunk down on the wet sand that was pretty  liberally dotted with cigarette stubs and crushed beer cans. There was even a gelatinous white heap a few feet away that he sure hoped was a jellyfish. “So, this is what you wanted to show me?” He gestured absently around them. “The seedier side of Picon’s beachfront property?

Kara just shook her head and reached for his wrist, pulling him down next to her, then she reached up and cupped a hand around his jaw, turning his head towards the ocean. “ _This_ is what I wanted to show you.”

The waves were high tonight, roiling and crashing wildly into whitecaps. Inky night sky bled into the blanket of dark water stretching endlessly to the horizon. Kara’s hand fell away, but Lee barely noticed. He stared at the sea, feeling surprised and almost disoriented. An entire summer here, and it felt suddenly like he’d never seen the ocean, never truly looked at it. It was enormous and tempestuous, majestic and awe-inspiring, and Lee felt small suddenly.

“It’s a great place for a house, huh?” Kara’s voice, soft and unfamiliar in tone, almost wistful, brought him back. “Someday. Someday I’m gonna build one. Right here.” She laid back, stretching out, her face turned up to the sky.

 Lee watched her, thought about stretching out next to her, but hesitated. Kara looked over at him after a few seconds, and either his thoughts were written all over his face or Kara just knew him that well, because she laughed and laid the pillow that she’d still been holding down on the sand next to her head, then shifted a little to rest against one side of it. “Such a girl, Adama,” she chuckled and patted the sand next to her.

He grinned, feeling sheepish and laid back, till the crown of his head touched Kara’s, and stared up at the sky. Shadows traveled rapidly over Caprica’s two moons, stars blinking bright then fading as the clouds rushed past. The sea clapped like thunder in his ears and Lee’s nose prickled at the wafting salt air, the scent much sharper down here. He closed his eyes and laid still. For a moment, Lee’s mind cleared, erasing all the thoughts that churned in his brain most of his waking hours:  protecting Zak, watching out for his mother, living up to his father’s expectations, leaving for the Academy in a few weeks. It was all gone.

“Lee?”

Kara’s voice sounded far away.

“Yeah.”

“How did you know?” she asked, slowly. “About the tattoo. My arm.”

He could hear her clothes rustle, felt her hair brushing his temple as she shifted on the pillow. His blood rushed a little, suddenly knowing without a hint of doubt that if he turned over and looked at Kara right now, everything would change.

Lee took a breath, and turned.

Her hair was glinting in the moonlight, her eyes wide and luminous as she watched him, waited for an answer. “You have a scar there.” It was a small circle, darker than the rest of Kara’s skin and if Lee had to bet odds, he’d guess it was a cigar burn. He reached down and traced a finger lightly against the reddened skin beneath the bright ink, careful not to touch the design itself. “You…when you’re nervous about something, you always cross your other arm over and cover it with your hand.” She’d done it when she’d met his father.

Kara blinked and her brow wrinkled. “You... you noticed?”

Lee nodded, feeling his pulse jump. Time seemed to slow down as he stared into Kara’s eyes. “I notice everything about you.”

Kara’s gaze widened, then flicked away. Her eyes fluttered closed and her next words came out as a whisper. “My mother did it. I was seven.”

Lee waited, dreading what might come next, but she didn’t say anything else. He looked at Kara, her eyes closed, face still, and wondered how anyone could do it. Not how any mother could hurt her child, but how anyone could look at Kara Thrace, beautiful and brash and brilliant, and try to break her.

“Kara,” he said, his voice barely more than a breath, and her eyes opened. Lee leaned in till their foreheads were nearly touching and cupped her face, his thumb brushing her cheekbone.

“Don’t,” she hissed, her tone sharp and desperate, and he froze.

“I- I-” he stammered, dropping his hand instantly just as Kara fisted hers in his t-shirt.

“Don’t you dare pity me, Lee Adama.”  Her chin jutted out, eyes flashing. “If you want to kiss me, then you kiss me, but I don’t need your pity and I don’t want it—”

He didn’t let her finish. Lee Adama was a lot of things, but a fool wasn’t one of them. He  reached out for Kara, hands cupping her face as he covered her mouth with his own and kissed her hard. There was no hesitation, just heat and hunger, the build-up from a hundred summer nights of watching and waiting and wanting Kara Thrace.

It was magic.

Lee deepened the kiss, lips parting hers, tongue stealing into her mouth and Kara’s hand relaxed, splayed out on his chest. Her free arm looped around his waist, squeezing him tighter to her. He could feel Kara’s body against him and wanted more. He rolled over on top of her, pressing Kara down into the sand so her soft curves melded to him from neck to knees. Her hands were sliding up his bare back, under his t-shirt, sparks dancing on his skin wherever she touched.

Lee’d been with girls before, plenty in fact, but it had never felt like this. Like a fire building in his blood, consuming him. He slid his hands down to her waist, fingers stroking across the soft skin of Kara’s stomach and her muscles twitched under his hand. Kara broke their kiss, a soft moan keening from her lips, and just the sound of it made him hard. Instinctively, he thrust, grinding his hips against hers and Kara wrapped her legs around him, and then it was his turn to groan. He pressed his face into the crook of her neck and his senses overloaded with the scent of her, the taste of her as he nipped the flesh, sucked at her skin.

Somewhere, in the far, dim corner of his brain, Lee was aware that this was all moving incredibly quickly. But rational thought was beyond him, flooded under the rush of pleasure with each new touch, and all he could think was: _more_. His hands pushed up her tank, thumbs ghosting over Kara’s ribs till they bumped the band of her bra. Lee slid them under the cotton barrier, stroking across the soft swells of her breasts. He was so lost in the feel of her that it didn’t register that Kara was calling his name at first. “Lee— _Lee_ —do you— _gods_ —do you have something?”

He was busy, thoroughly exploring the small beauty mark at the base of her neck with his tongue. “ _LEE!_ ”

“What?” He shifted, moving his mouth over her collarbone. “Have what?” he murmured between kisses.

Kara squeezed his shoulders, fingers digging in hard. “Wallet,” she gasped. “C-condoms?”

Lee froze. “Oh. _Oh frak_.”

Kara’s eyes slid closed and she sighed. “That _was_ the idea.”

“I didn’t know—” he shifted, his hands sliding down to her waist again. “I mean, I had no idea I’d need—” Lee paused, frustrated, trying to get the haze in his brain to clear as Kara opened her eyes and looked at him. “We— don’t usually do this,” he gulped, feeling embarrassed and awkward.

Her shoulders rippled, lips quirking suddenly as she snorted softly. “Yeah. This is kinda new.”

Lee laughed too, and had to lean in to kiss her again, just a soft, quick kiss. But Kara squeezed her legs around his hips and nipped at his bottom lip. 

“I don’t want to stop,” she murmured against his mouth.

The words sent shivers racing down his spine, and for a split-second, Lee thought about saying frak it, throwing caution to the wind, because, by the gods, it would almost be worth it. But his better nature prevailed. “Me neither,” he breathed, stealing another kiss, before slowly pulling back. “But we have to. And Zak… Well, Zak’s probably wandering around up there with a bunch of corndogs, wondering where the hell we are.

“Hmmmf,” Kara grunted, her lips pooching out slightly in a pout that just made him want to kiss her some more. Her eyes narrowed, gleaming and the pout turned into a smirk. “Think we could send him off again to find the nearest drugstore?”

They both laughed, and Lee sighed and rolled off her. “C’mon,” he got up and pulled Kara up too. Her hair was a disheveled mess and they were both covered in sand. They brushed as much of it off as they could, then Lee reached for her hand, locked their fingers together. Warmth flooded his chest when Kara squeezed him back.

He wondered what all this meant. They’d started out tonight as friends. Really good friends. Was she his friend with benefits now or his girlfriend, or his…well, he didn’t know what she was now.

But she was his. That much he knew. Lee smiled.

The rest they could figure out later. He still had a week here on Picon. Silently, he vowed to spend as many of his waking moments as possible with Kara.

They stepped forward, and she swooped down and grabbed the silly, stuffed pillow.

“Uh, I think it’s been more than an hour, Kara. Punishment’s up.”

She grinned and shrugged, tucking it under her arm. “Maybe I’ll keep it. A little souvenir of the night I almost debauched the innocent  Lee Adama.” She winked.

“I’m not that innocent,” he protested, but Kara was already laughing, pulling him forward. She led him back under the docks to a set of stairs he hadn’t noticed before.

“You couldn’t have taken _this way_ down before, Kara? You really had to give me a heart attack?”

“Stairs are for boring people.”

“Yeah, well, I like vanilla remember?”

She rounded on him as they reached the top and stepped out onto the boardwalk, eyes flickering. “Mmm, well you like _me_ , and I’m definitely not vanilla.”

“No,” he agreed, grinning. “I think you’re rocky road. Or maybe something with nuts. Yeah, lots of nuts. COMPLETELY NUTS.”

She elbowed him in the gut but squeezed his fingers tight again. “Yeah, but you love it, and you know it.” She smirked triumphantly. “Face it, Adama, I make your life interesting.” Kara widened her eyes, lifting her other hand to her chest and feigning innocence. “Clearly, I’m the butter pecans in your boring vanilla.”   

The moonlight shined brightly on Kara’s face, lit with amusment as she watched him, eyes dancing, probably just waiting to deliver another clever comeback, but Lee had other ideas. He leaned in close and kissed her again. Soft and slow and languid this time. It was just as good as the frantic, hungry kisses before and he wondered how many ways there were to kiss someone. He intended to spend the next week finding out.

They’d barely managed to tear themselves apart and start walking again, before Zak came out of a nearby souvenir shack and darted over to them. “Here you are! Where the frak were you guys? I looked everywhere?!”

Guilt flashed through Lee for a moment, and he didn’t know what to say. Even if he was too young for her, Zak would probably be crushed to find out Lee was with Kara. He felt the urge to confess, but wasn’t sure what to say.

Kara, however, was not nearly as tongue-tied. “Just messing around,” she said casually, and reached out for one of the corndogs he was holding. “Thanks Zak, you’re a good kid.”

He frowned, and then his gaze skipped down to their hands, still gripped tightly together. Zak’s eyebrows rose. “Guess you weren’t quite that hungry after all? For corndogs anyway.”

He knew his little brother well enough to hear the hurt behind his light tone. Zak was the baby of the family, used to getting his way. But not this time. Lee felt bad that he’d hurt his feelings, made a promise to himself that somehow he’d make it up to Zak. But he couldn’t give up Kara. Not even for his brother.

“Sorry, Zak.” He said softly.

His brother looked at him for a long moment, and then he just shrugged. “No big deal,” he said. “But you know, I wouldn’t go all that way for just anybody.” His eyes caught Lee’s and he smiled finally. “It’s a good thing I love you guys.”

Lee smiled back, getting the message and feeling relieved. Kara let go of his hand and grabbed the other corndog from Zak, then walked a few steps to the trashcan, and dumped them. She clapped her hands together and beamed at them both. “Good, now that that’s settled, let’s move it.” She walked back over to them and threw an arm around each of their shoulders. “I’m definitely in the mood for some butter pecan ice cream.”

\--fin--


End file.
